


Two Boys, Two Men

by bioticsblue



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, relationship between alistair and cullen through the years, request from dafsmith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-09 04:42:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7787212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bioticsblue/pseuds/bioticsblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alistair and Cullen have been training at the same Chantry but didn't think well of each other. Years later, both married and happy, they meet again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Boys, Two Men

**Author's Note:**

> A drabble as a gift for dafsmith for helping me with ME1 :3

Alistair is 14 and he hates singing the Chant of Light. Either the other boys seem to enjoy it, or at least they are good at pretending to enjoy. Alistair, on the other hand, makes sure to forget the lines or – what he likes a lot – starts singing something completely unrelated to the Chant. 

Sometimes, it’s about mabari. Sometimes, it’s about the dinner he is really, really eager to have but he has to sing instead. The Reverend Mother hates Alistair for his lack of respect for the Chant, but he’s bored out of his mind when it comes to religion. He’d rather be training or cleaning stables. Leave the religious sermons to that Cullen guy. 

Alistair sings an entire stanza off key, and earns a glare from the curly boy. Cullen and Alistair can’t find anything in common; even when some peeps call them brothers in terms of their looks. 

Alistair sends a return glare at Cullen, but mixes it with all the laughter he barely holds back since he can hear younger boys pick up after his lines. The entire row now sings about wheeled cheese, and Cullen is pissed off so much his hair puffs more than usual. 

Well, maybe they are the same type. Both tall and lean, both blond, both honey-eyed. Their personalities are quite very different, though. Cullen is all perfect and precise, but his right swing of a sword is weaker than it should be, but he compensates it with quick stepping, quite resembling that of a dancer.

Alistair is mostly all about the laughs and maybe some travel, but he never gets a lot of that. So he’s miserable and out of his place, but he likes to prank the Chantry people and it sort of compensates. Also, he’s really good with his shield, and his training comes easy to him.

Twenty five years later, Alistair is a king and the most beautiful woman in the world is his queen. Cullen is a lord in Kirkwall, with a lovely ex-Inquisitor as his wife. All their similarities are long gone, but people still compare.

Queen Cousland leans into Alistair’s shoulder, a sweet smile dancing on her lips as she whispers to her husband a joking comment about Alistair’s and Cullen’s shared training. Alistair laughs and plays along, and their laughter travels through the banquet. Cullen glares, and there’s something eerily similar between this man and a teenager he once was.

Cullen’s wife has a puzzled look across her face as she notices her husband’s heavy glare, but she seems to be oblivious to their past lives, before all the heroics they did to keep Thedas safe. So, inquisitive as she is, she drags her curly husband to where the Theirins are standing, and Alistair’s wife just can’t help but greet Cullen with a remark and a suggestive glance at Alistair.

Cullen groans as Lavellan tugs gently at his sleeve and asks him what all of this is about. “Cullen, you’ve met the king of Ferelden before and never told me about that?”

Alistair laughs: “I wasn’t a king back then, Lady Rutherford, just a bastard boy training to be a templar. So was your husband. Except of the bastard part.”

The queen laughs melodically and raises an eyebrow in wait for Cullen’s answer. The poor man blushes fiercely, but finally replies: “We didn’t get along so good, as I recall. Someone would always mock the Chant.”

“And someone would always sing it oh so boringly right,” Alistair laughs. “Dear wife, do you remember that Sister in Denerim, who kept chanting about bacon and such?”

Cousland grins: “Her Chant had a certain appeal to it, I have to admit.”

Lavellan’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise as she watches and listens to the conversation that follows, with both Cullen and Alistair recalling their training days, sort of competing against each other on who will remember the most embarrassing thing about the other. Some time well into the evening, she whispers in her husband’s ear: “So that’s true? You’d trained with the king of Ferelden?”

Cullen stretches his long legs under the table, much more relaxed than he was when he first met with the Theirins. “Yes,” he pauses then, watching the king for a moment. “Deep down, I’m glad that I did.”

Alistair hears that and grins from ear to ear. “Me too, Rutherford. Someone had to teach you how to block properly.”

“And you how to do the steps right. Though there still remains the question of the Chant…”

Alistair instantly glares, and Cousland and Lavellan share quick glances as they can feel the atmosphere thickening, but then the men burst out laughing, and the ladies exhale in relief.

Apparently, some friendships are just supposed to happen, even years later.


End file.
